109 Fun Facts About Destiny

Which vendor turns up in Destiny's Tower only at weekends to sell exotic gear?

Xûr. The Agent of the Nine is gone again within days, and Destiny 2 later made him the host of a game show, Dares of Eternity, alongside a celestial horse.

Which platform missed the original Destiny entirely but got Destiny 2 in 2017?

Windows PC. Destiny 2 launched there on Blizzard's Battle.net, then moved to Steam in 2019 once Bungie had split from its publisher.

Destiny was the first game in the developer's ten-year agreement with which publisher?

Activision published Destiny under a ten-year agreement signed with the developer in April 2010; the partnership ended early when the two split in January 2019.

Destiny's $325 million first five days in 2014 set a launch record for what kind of game?

A new franchise. Its publisher claimed the record in 2014, but it lasted under two years: Ubisoft's The Division took it in 2016 with an estimated $330 million.

When it unveiled Destiny in 2013, Bungie avoided the label MMO in favour of which term?

Shared-world shooter. Bungie resisted the MMO tag even though Destiny drops strangers into one persistent online world and borrows other MMO features.

What is Destiny's player-versus-player mode, overseen by Lord Shaxx, called?

The Crucible. Gear power is levelled out in its standard matches so skill decides, and in the story it doubles as live-fire training for the wars to come.

Which white spherical being hovers over humanity's last safe city in Destiny?

The Traveler is the vast white sphere whose arrival ushered in humanity's Golden Age; it fell silent above the city after the Collapse.

In Destiny, what is the small flying AI companion that resurrects your Guardian called?

Ghost. Each one searches for a single long-dead person to raise as its partner, who then wakes with no memory of the life they led before.

Which actor first voiced the player's AI companion in Destiny, before being recast in 2015?

Peter Dinklage. His deadpan delivery was widely mocked, yet when Nolan North re-recorded every line in 2015, Bungie put the recast down to the star's packed schedule.

Which deadpan line from Destiny's alpha became a meme that Bungie printed on a charity T-shirt?

'That wizard came from the Moon' drew so much mockery in the June 2014 alpha that Bungie said its companion's dialogue had already been reworked for the beta a month later.

Who voices the Speaker in the original Destiny?

Bill Nighy. His Speaker greets new arrivals at the Tower, and returns in Destiny 2 only to be captured by the invading Red Legion and killed.

Which class item do Destiny's Hunters wear?

A cloak. Titans wear marks and Warlocks bonds instead, and all three were purely cosmetic until a 2015 update gave class items a defence stat.

Which three species can a player's Guardian be in Destiny?

Human, Awoken and Exo. The choice is cosmetic, but an Exo's name tells a story: the number in a name like Banshee-44 counts how many times its memory has been wiped.

Which of these supers belongs to the Hunter class in Destiny?

Golden Gun. The Gunslinger's flaming pistol holds just three shots, so each miss throws away a third of the super; Nova Bomb is a Warlock's and the other two are Titans'.

Which Titan subclass in the original Destiny has the Ward of Dawn bubble as its super?

Defender. Destiny 2 replaced the subclass with Sentinel, whose new super is a Void shield that can be thrown, though it can still raise the old bubble.

How many players make up a raid team in Destiny?

Six. Raids launched with no matchmaking: players had to gather their own team, a barrier one of the designers said he put up on purpose to protect the challenge.

Which was the first Destiny raid, set on Venus and ending with the boss Atheon?

Vault of Glass, opened a week after launch on Venus, ends with Atheon, Time's Conflux, who flings players into the past or future.

Which Destiny enemy race are semi-organic androids that run endless simulations and bend time?

The Vex are machines animated by radiolarian fluid that run endless simulations and bend time; they long ago converted Mercury into a single planet-spanning machine.

Destiny's Fallen, insectoid nomadic pirates, are also known by what name?

Eliksni is the Fallen's own name for themselves; they are organised into Houses, each led by a Kell, and once revered the Great Machine that abandoned them.

Which Destiny race is a militaristic empire of hulking armoured soldiers dug in on Mars?

The Cabal. The original game treats their Mars bases as scouting posts for an invasion of Earth, and in Destiny 2 that invasion arrives.

In Destiny lore, the Hive gods Oryx, Xivu Arath and their sister began as three siblings of which race?

The Krill of Fundament. With their father the king overthrown, the three sisters struck a bargain with the Worm Gods trapped deep in the planet: feed them, and never die.

Which 2015 expansion began Destiny's Year Two and added a third subclass to every class?

The Taken King. Its villain Oryx comes for revenge after players killed his son Crota in the game's first expansion, and parks his Dreadnaught in the rings of Saturn.

Which Destiny expansion introduced the technological plague SIVA and the Devil Splicers?

Rise of Iron. Lord Saladin recruits players as a new generation of Iron Lords, the order that gave their lives to contain SIVA more than a century earlier.

Where was most of the original Destiny's lore kept, readable only outside the game?

Grimoire cards online. Players unlocked them in the game but could read them only on Bungie's website or app, and Destiny 2 dropped the system to tell its story in-game.

Which periodic PvP event in Destiny offers exclusive gear and rotates modes like Control and Clash?

Iron Banner. Unlike everyday matches, the week-long event switches gear advantages on, so a stronger rifle really does hit harder.

What was the name of the exploit spot in Destiny where enemies respawned fast enough to farm gear?

The Loot Cave. Players lined up to fire into a cave whose enemies came back every six seconds, until a hotfix about two weeks after launch stretched the wait to forty.

Which long-time composer did Destiny's developer fire in April 2014 over an E3 trailer dispute?

Martin O'Donnell, who scored the Halo series, was dismissed 'without cause' that April and later won a court case against the studio over unpaid wages and stock.

Which former Beatle collaborated on Destiny's symphonic suite Music of the Spheres?

Paul McCartney. The suite he co-wrote was shelved when Bungie fell out with its lead composer; it leaked online in 2017, and the studio finally published it in 2018.

Around how many players took part in Destiny's public beta in July 2014?

4.6 million. The beta began as a pre-order perk on PlayStation, spread to Xbox, then was thrown open to everyone for its final days; the publisher counted 4,638,937 players.

Destiny lost its three other nominations at the 2015 British Academy Games Awards but won which prize?

Best Game. Destiny beat Alien: Isolation, which had arrived with the most nominations of the night and went home with only the audio prize.

What did Bungie's 2010 contract promise if Destiny's reviews averaged 90?

A bonus. The contract promised $2.5 million if the first game's reviews averaged 90 a month after release; Destiny sat near 76, though the deal may have been reworked by then.

Where in Destiny is the social hub called the Tower located?

Earth's Last City. The Tower stood on the city's outer wall until Destiny 2 opened by destroying it; the survivors later set up a new base on the wall beneath the ruins.

Destiny 2 went free-to-play under what name in October 2019?

New Light. The free version started newcomers with a remake of the original Destiny's opening mission, waking up in the Cosmodrome all over again.

Which Red Legion commander steals the Light in Destiny 2's Red War campaign?

Dominus Ghaul. His forces clamp a device onto the great sphere above the city to drain its Light, and he dies when it wakes and destroys the machine.

Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion opens with the murder of which major character?

Cayde-6. Uldren Sov shoots him with his own gun, the Ace of Spades, during a Prison of Elders breakout, and the hunt for the killer drives the whole expansion.

Which actor originally voiced the Hunter Vanguard in Destiny?

Nathan Fillion. He voiced the character from 2014, sat out one 2018 expansion in which Nolan North stood in, and returned for The Final Shape in 2024.

Which actor was the original voice of Commander Zavala in Destiny?

Lance Reddick. After he died in March 2023, players gathered en masse around Zavala in the Tower to salute him, and Keith David later took over the role.

Which enemy race of undead Fallen did Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion introduce?

The Scorn. They are dead Fallen brought back by Ether tainted with the Darkness, twisted so far from what they were that they count as a race of their own.

Which Darkness power, introduced on Europa in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, became the fourth subclass?

Stasis. Until then every player power had come from the Light; Stasis let Guardians freeze and shatter enemies with the Darkness they had always fought.

Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion is set in whose Throne World?

Savathûn's. Her Lucent Brood wield the Light themselves: these Hive come back from the dead just as players do, unless their floating companions are crushed in time.

Destiny 2: Lightfall sends players to a secret human city on which planet?

Neptune. Its city, Neomuna, stayed hidden from the rest of humanity for centuries, until Calus and his Shadow Legion came to lay siege to it.

In Destiny 2: The Final Shape, players pass through a portal into which new destination?

The Pale Heart. After ten years beneath the series' great white sphere, players finally step inside it, into landscapes stitched together from places they had visited before.

Which 12-player Destiny 2 mission unlocked for everyone once a team first cleared the Salvation's Edge raid?

Excision. Twelve players at once took on the Witness for the last time, and the mission stayed locked for everyone until one team had finished the raid, after almost 19 hours.

Which subclass, mixing Light and Darkness abilities, arrived with Destiny 2: The Final Shape?

Prismatic. After a decade spent pitting Light against Darkness, the saga's closing chapter let Guardians fuse the two, mixing abilities from all five earlier subclasses.

Which Star Wars-inspired expansion, released in December 2025, was Destiny 2's tenth?

Renegades. Made with Lucasfilm Games, it even gave players the Praxic Blade, Destiny 2's own take on the lightsaber.

Which company bought Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022 while promising to keep Destiny multi-platform?

Sony. The console maker left Destiny 2 on rival platforms, but by 2026 it had written $765 million off Bungie's value.

Which of its 1990s games did Bungie revive as an extraction shooter in 2026?

Marathon. The series returned in March 2026, its first new entry since 1996, in the same financial year that Bungie's parent company wrote $765 million off the studio's value.

Bungie began in 1991 making games for which computer?

Macintosh. Founded in Chicago, Bungie picked Apple's machine partly because co-founder Jason Jones had grown up on Apple computers, and Mac gamers were still waiting for its Halo when the studio was sold in 2000.

Which company acquired Destiny's developer, Bungie, in 2000?

Microsoft. It bought the studio in June 2000 to make Halo the flagship of its new console; Bungie negotiated its independence in 2007 and left Halo behind.

What is the name of Destiny's mobile spin-off, released by NetEase in August 2025?

Destiny: Rising. It grew out of NetEase's $100 million investment in Bungie in 2018, and swaps the series' three classes for a roster of named heroes.

In Destiny, what are the personal hoverbikes that players summon to cross patrol zones called?

Sparrows. In December 2015 Bungie built a whole event around them, the Sparrow Racing League, which it called a free-for-all death race through enemy territory.

Which Destiny 2 mode, hosted by the Drifter, pits two teams against AI enemies and each other?

Gambit. Two teams of four race to bank motes dropped by the enemies they kill, and every so often a portal lets one player cross over to hunt the other team.

Under what code name, also the animal in an early concept painting, did Bungie develop Destiny?

Project Tiger. An early concept painting featuring a space tiger fired up the team, and by one account the image gave the project its code name.

Bungie's former audio director says it chose Destiny's publisher over console makers for what reason?

It let the studio keep the IP. By his account both console makers wanted to own Destiny, as one of them had kept Halo, and Bungie treated ownership as non-negotiable.

Which lead writer left Bungie in 2013 after studio leadership scrapped his story 'supercut' for Destiny?

Joseph Staten. Halo's long-time writer left after leadership judged his version too linear, and Destiny's whole mission structure was rebuilt in the year before launch.

Which location was cut from Destiny in its 2013 restructuring, only to return in later games?

The European Dead Zone. Cut as a destination in the 2013 rebuild, it survived only as a backdrop for multiplayer maps until Destiny 2 opened it up to explore in 2017.

Bungie named Han Solo and which Western gunslinger as influences on Destiny's Hunter class?

Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name. Bungie wanted Hunters to recall the classic bounty hunter, just as Warlocks echo Jedi and Gandalf and Titans its own Master Chief.

At which event was Destiny shown on stage in 2013, days after Bungie first revealed it?

The PlayStation 4 reveal event. Bungie's president walked on stage at the New York show to promise PlayStation owners exclusive playable content.

Which Warmind, an AI built to defend Earth, do players find still active in the original Destiny?

Rasputin. The Warmind had outlasted the Collapse, and years later in Destiny 2 its orbital weapons blew apart the Almighty, a Red Legion ship sent on a collision course with Earth.

Destiny's Enthusiastic Dance emote copies the moves of which Fresh Prince of Bel-Air character?

Carlton Banks's routine, the Carlton Dance, inspired one of the first emotes sold when Destiny opened its emote shop in October 2015. Bungie stressed that every purchase was optional.

A 106-piece orchestra recorded Destiny's score at which famous London studio complex?

Abbey Road Studios hosted the sessions, which had yielded over 50 minutes of music by February 2013; the composer began writing before there was any gameplay to score.

Destiny 2's Tharsis Cantina, home to crime syndicates, is modelled on a bar in which Star Wars town?

Mos Eisley Cantina inspired the social space added on Mars by the game's tenth expansion, a tribute to a film series that had shaped Destiny's design from the start.

Which video game hero did Bungie name as an inspiration for Destiny's Titan class?

Master Chief was cited beside Star Wars stormtroopers and science fiction's other space marines as a model for the Titan, Destiny's take on the classic future soldier.

The original Destiny opens with the player's Guardian being revived amid the ruins of which country?

Russia, or Old Russia in the game's telling, is home to the Cosmodrome, the derelict spaceport from which humanity once launched its ventures into outer space.

In Destiny lore, what is every Guardian missing when first raised from the dead to serve the Light?

Their memories of any earlier life are gone: the player's own Guardian died in an ancient battle and wakes with no idea who they used to be.

What is the name of Destiny's Halloween event, in which Guardians collect decorative masks?

Festival of the Lost began in October 2015 with Eva Levante as its host, and its 2018 edition ended in a three-week murder mystery.

What does Destiny call the cataclysm that wiped out humanity's colonies across the Solar System?

The Collapse ended the Golden Age and left the only known survivors on Earth, sheltering beneath the vast sphere that had once helped them reach the stars.

In Destiny, which elemental damage type is coloured purple, alongside blue Arc and orange Solar?

Void completes the trio of Light elements, and a weapon tears through an enemy's shield fastest when its element matches the shield's own.

What is a squad of players called when they group up for a mission together in Destiny?

A fireteam in the original game was capped at three players for story missions, and raids were the only cooperative activity that let a bigger group in.

What does Destiny call its three-player cooperative missions that build to a boss fight?

Strikes are mostly side missions outside the main plot, and the Nightfall, a weekly version loaded with punishing modifiers, pays out bigger rewards.

Which Destiny loot items must be decoded by a Cryptarch such as Master Rahool to reveal their gear?

Engrams are turned in at social spaces to become weapons and armour, and Rahool also buys curiosities from Guardians between decoding jobs.

What is the name of the basic currency that Destiny players spend with vendors on new gear?

Glimmer also settled Destiny 2's Faction Rally: the winning faction's prize cost 1,000 of it, while supporters of the losing sides paid 50,000.

Which Titan subclass, added to Destiny in 2015, arms players with a flaming hammer to throw?

Sunbreaker gave Titans a Solar option at last, built around the Hammer of Sol, a super that works both as a thrown weapon and at close quarters.

Which super do Voidwalker Warlocks unleash in the original Destiny?

Nova Bomb belongs to one of the Warlock's two launch subclasses; the other, the Solar Sunsinger, could use its Radiance super to come back from the dead.

Which Destiny faction, a rival of New Monarchy, wants humanity to abandon the Solar System?

Dead Orbit, led by Arach Jalaal, believed humanity's future lay in colonising worlds elsewhere; all three of the city's factions were disbanded during Destiny 2.

In Destiny, Queen Mara Sov and her brother Prince Uldren rule which region out in the asteroid belt?

The Reef's people refuse to take sides in the galaxy's wars, and their queen demands the head of a Gate Lord before she will help the player's Guardian.

Destiny's first campaign ends by destroying the heart of which realm, found on no map of space?

The Black Garden is entered through a gate on Mars, and destroying its heart lifts a shroud from Earth's protector, allowing it to begin to heal.

Which Walking Dead star voiced the Stranger, the mystery ally who calls players to Venus in Destiny?

Lauren Cohan played the Stranger in 2014; when the character returned in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, identified as Elsie Bray, Moira Quirk had become her voice.

Which veteran voice actor took over as the player's robot companion in Destiny in 2015?

Nolan North re-recorded every line of the original game, and chose not to listen to his predecessor's takes so that they would not shape his own performance.

Resurrected as a Guardian in Destiny 2, the former prince Uldren Sov takes which new name?

Crow, voiced by the same actor as the prince he used to be, goes on to succeed the man he killed as Hunter Vanguard after The Final Shape.

Which leader of the Black Fleet is the final villain of Destiny's ten-year Light and Darkness saga?

The Witness tricked three sisters into the bargain that created the Hive, and its defeat inside Earth's great sphere closed a story begun in 2014.

Destiny 2's first raid takes place aboard which vast ship, flagship of the exiled emperor Calus?

The Leviathan slowly consumes the planetoid Nessus from orbit, and the Calus whom players beat at the end of the raid proves to be a mechanical double.

In Destiny 2's Red War campaign, which star-destroying superweapon is stationed close to the Sun?

The Almighty was breaking up the planet Mercury for fuel, and the heroes learn that simply destroying the station would take the Sun down with it.

In Destiny's 2015 expansion, Oryx arrives aboard which huge flagship parked in the rings of Saturn?

The Dreadnaught doubled as a new area to explore and the setting of the expansion's closing raid, where Oryx makes his last stand.

Destiny players who go unbeaten in Trials of Osiris earn entry to which exclusive space on Mercury?

The Lighthouse rewards a flawless run in the weekend tournament, which opens each Friday and closes with the weekly reset on Tuesday.

After the Tower falls in Destiny 2's opening, which makeshift refuge becomes the social hub?

The Farm takes in survivors guided there by Suraya Hawthorne, a non-Guardian from the city's outskirts who later takes up a post in the Tower once the city is retaken.

Which AI with a split personality survives aboard the crashed colony ship Exodus Black in Destiny 2?

Failsafe helps the player free a trapped Vanguard leader from a portal loop on Nessus, where her starship had come down centuries earlier.

In Destiny, what title is held by the leader of each of the Fallen's tribal Houses?

Kell was not enough for Skolas, who styled himself Kell of Kells in his campaign to unite the whole Fallen race under his rule.

Which raid was added by Destiny's first expansion, The Dark Below?

Crota's End sends Guardians into caverns under the lunar surface to kill the son of Oryx, whose vengeful father arrives in the next major expansion.

Which wish-granting Ahamkara is the final boss of Destiny 2's Last Wish raid in the Dreaming City?

Riven of a Thousand Voices is the wish dragon who corrupted Uldren Sov, setting the whole Forsaken story in motion.

Which former Hunter, a student of the Hive, unleashes the Nightmares in Destiny 2: Shadowkeep?

Eris Morn accidentally set them loose while investigating a dormant Pyramid ship buried beneath the lunar surface, then spent the campaign trying to undo it.

Bungie cited Gandalf, the Jedi and which Matrix character as influences on Destiny's Warlock class?

Morpheus joined the other two as templates for a class Bungie pitched as a kind of space magician, mixing firearms with special powers.

Which Darkness power, built on psychic energy and a grappling hook, did Destiny 2 add in Lightfall?

Strand lets Guardians lash out with web-like threads and swing across the skyline of Neomuna, the hidden city where the expansion is set.

Which weapon type did Destiny 2 introduce in The Witch Queen expansion?

Glaives mix melee strikes with ranged fire, and arrived alongside weapon crafting, which let players learn a weapon's pattern and rebuild it with the perks they wanted.

Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate sends Guardians to which Oort cloud planetoid, warped by a singularity?

Kepler is home to the mysterious Aionian people, and the invitation to visit comes from the Nine, beings who had tracked the Guardian for years.

Destiny 2 came to which newly launched game-streaming service in November 2019?

Stadia got Destiny 2 in late 2019, around the time the game went free-to-play and began letting one set of characters travel between platforms.

Which store did Destiny add in October 2015 to sell emotes for a paid currency called Silver?

Eververse opened with Tess Everis behind the counter, and Bungie pitched its optional purchases as a way to fund another full year of live updates.

Which Arrested Development star was hired to write jokes for Destiny, none of which made the game?

David Cross and Brian Posehn were brought to Bungie's offices to punch up the robot companion's dialogue, but he believes the humour clashed with the game's tone.

Which Exotic rocket launcher in Destiny scatters homing Wolfpack Rounds when its rocket explodes?

Gjallarhorn hit bosses so hard that raid groups demanded it of recruits, and Nerf later sold a foam-dart replica more than four feet long.

Which Exotic hand cannon in Destiny belonged to Shin Malphur, the Hunter who killed Dredgen Yor?

The Last Word appears out of nowhere during a Destiny 2 quest, just in time for the player's Guardian to finish off a Hive weapon master with it.

Which returning Exotic hand cannon was the first Exotic in Destiny 2 to drop with random perks?

Hawkmoon came back through a quest to reforge it, and a later repeatable mission dropped versions with random perks where every earlier Exotic's were fixed.

Which Exotic machine gun returned in Destiny 2 as the prize of a Halloween murder-mystery quest?

Thunderlord, a returning weapon from the first game, was the reward at the end of a three-week whodunnit that ran through the 2018 seasonal event.

Which Exotic sidearm in Destiny 2 copies the M6 magnum from one of Bungie's earlier game series?

Forerunner came with the 30th Anniversary Pack of 2021, whose free group activity takes the form of a game show.

Which Exotic sword, added in December 2025, is Destiny 2's answer to the Star Wars lightsaber?

The Praxic Blade is earned in a mission on Europa, and the Praxic Order it is named for is the game's parallel to the Jedi.

Which pre-order Exotic was Destiny 2's first trace rifle, a gun that fires a continuous laser beam?

Coldheart reached pre-order customers early as an extra, and its beam keeps firing for as long as the trigger is held down.

Which Exotic submachine gun do new Destiny 2 players earn by finishing the introductory quest?

Riskrunner is built from a superconductor, a relic the new Guardian recovers and delivers to Commander Zavala during the opening missions.

Which Exotic pulse rifle does the Fallen ally Mithrax hand over after Destiny 2's Zero Hour mission?

Outbreak Perfected runs on SIVA, and Mithrax gives it away so that his fellow Fallen can never turn the nanotechnology into a weapon again.

Which Destiny Exotic weapon shares its name with a lunar creature of East Asian folklore?

The Jade Rabbit, a scout rifle, spent two years as a console exclusive, and Destiny 2 later hid small rabbit statues on the lunar surface that accept offerings of rice cake.

Which fabled Titan, rescued from death by time travel, runs the Trials of Osiris in Destiny 2?

Saint-14 was pulled from his own death using the Sundial, a time machine on Mercury that Osiris had built in an earlier, failed attempt to save him.